Phone In, Strip Off, Chill Out

The Esalen Institute  the 44-year-old spiritual retreat once infamous as a flashpoint of the hippy movement  is offering a spectacular new high. And this time, it has nothing to do with the LSD-inspired antics of past luminary visitors such as Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary. Instead, the not-for-profit seminar center  set amid a spectacular 165 acres of California's Big Sur coastline  has thrown open its extensively renovated thermal-spring baths to the public. You need to pay a $20 fee and make an advance reservation, tel: (1 831) 667 3047. Oh yes, and you can only visit between...